Some people have studies. Others dens. Or offices. I have a Scriptorium.

In our previous home, H. worked in the spare room, and I at the dining table in the living room. After a while, however, I found it hard to do any of my own writing in a space that was, ultimately, communal, especially outside working hours. So, after the usual period of grumpiness and seething dissatisfaction, I came up with a solution. I bought myself a small, folding, wooden exam desk – complete with pen-carrying groove – and a small, folding chair. I placed them in a corner of our bedroom, between the window and the chest of drawers. There was enough space for a few white fairy lights to give this corner an air of celebration, a candle for inspiration, and, of course, enough room to write. Because, at the time, I was translating an Italian novel set in 11th century Venice, complete with copyist monks and illuminated manuscripts, I began jokingly referring to my little corner of freedom and creativity as my Scriptorium. The term soon became shorthand for “do not disturb”. So if H. asked what my plans were for that afternoon or evening and I replied, “I’ll be in the Scriptorium,” he knew I would be off limits. Consequently, when I grew exhausted, irritable and/or discontented, he would gently suggest “spending a few hours in [your] Scriptorium“.

When we moved to this house, at the end of April, he kindly offered the spare room to me. “Think about it,” he said, “you can have a whole room for your Scriptorium and not just a corner.”

It had been a while since I’d had a space I could arrange to please myself and myself alone. As I stood in the room, surrounded by towers of unopened boxes, I tried to picture it the way I wanted it, constantly reminding myself that it was going to be my room, my space. I could have it look and feel the way I wanted it. I didn’t have to compromise, to ask anyone else if they minded this print or this plant or the furniture arranged this or that way.

Oh, bliss.

A print of Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea had been stored in a box since I’d bought it from the Villa Farnesina gift shop a few years ago. H. doesn’t care for it. It was the first print I unrolled, smoothed, and hung on the wall, almost as a declaration of freedom. Naturally, my beloved Tobias and the Angel, by Verrocchio, took prime position, above a small sofa bed. A small futon that turns into a chaise-longue, covered in a red and black Abruzzo-style woollen throw from my school days. Not really suitable for overnight guests, but perfect for reclining on for an afternoon nap, getting absorbed in a good book, or simply lounging and looking at all the familiar, friendly objects in the room.

A bookcase devoted exclusively to books on medicine and healing, one with a row of dictionaries, a shelf for religion and philosophy, and at the bottom, a collection of world folk fairy tales and mythology. Books in Russian, French, Italian and Spanish. And then a shelf for my guilty pleasure: the crime novels of Donna Leon.

My elemental friends, of course, live with me in this room. Among them, the lemon plant I’ve grown from a pip, the pink busy-lizzy on my desk to cheer my working hours, and my oldest companion, the weeping ficus plant. A Bahamian friend gave it to me in Cambridge, over twenty years ago, before she went back to the Bahamas. At Christmas, I thread white fairy lights through its branches.

Fairy lights, of course. An odd wine glass with white ones. A jar with coloured ones.

Postcards with Mediaeval and Renaissance paintings of learned, inspiring women. Christine de Pisan. Veronica Franco. Photos of favourite trees. A Cedar of Lebanon in Norwich, Maritime Pines in Rome.

Beautiful words. Saint Francis’s Canticle of the Creatures, the faith of Julian of Norwich. The term “Joy” cut out from bright yellow paper, pinned to the noticeboard above my desk.

Favourite objects. A toy spinning wheel, a piece of flint with a quartz inclusion picked up on Hunstanton beach. Candles. Things treasured because they were given to me by friends.

A white swan and a black and shimmering blue-green magpie feather. A Schornsteinfeger from a New Year’s Eve in Hamburg. A cartoon from the New Yorker. Christian Dior fashion pictures from the 1950s. Drawings of Commedia dell’arte characters.

On my desk, the books I’m currently translating on the wooden stand, an Oxford Concise Dictionary, a small wooden box with “Fulham SW6” printed on it, found in a bric-à-brac shop – a reminder of my London life – for pens, scissors, markers, calculator, candle snuffer, and other bits and pieces.

Etc.

And, of course, something on which to play music.

Friends who come in look around, not knowing what to make of the room at first. Then they comment on how “peaceful” it feels.

As I write this, H. has come to sit here too, to read yesterday’s Guardian, while listening to William Byrd.

Like this:

H. and I moved two months ago. My fortieth-something move. That’s not counting packing up the contents of my college room at Durham on the last day of every term, then unpacking it again when term restarted. No, it doesn’t get easier or smoother. Your body and mind – mine, at least – start screaming Enough is enough!

I’d never lived in a whole house before. I’d lodged in a few rooms that happened to be in houses, mainly during my student days, but I’d never had my possessions spread over two floors until now. I’m finding the experience somewhat unsettling. Disorientating. As someone raised between Italy and France, where most “normal” people live in flats, unless they are inordinately wealthy, have inherited their homes or live out in the sticks, houses – especially late 19th – early 20th century English houses – are for me best read about in novels or seen in the kind of magazine pictures that make the interiors look bigger and brighter than they actually are. I don’t care for all the traipsing up and down the stairs every time I need my glasses, forget a book or go to the bathroom (I practise Qi Gong every morning, I do not want to “exercise” on stairs). Moreover, any property with character is sure to lead to a personality clash with me. I have more than enough character to fill a living space, I don’t want the personality of the house or flat to interfere with it. Therefore, my ideal is rooms all on one level, with straight walls, high ceilings, large windows that open in full. No quirky arches, historical protrusions, charmingly irregular corners or period alcoves, thank you. I want to place my furniture exactly where I please, without the building dictating to me what it wants and where.

To H., born and bred on the island of Albion, however, it is inconceivable that any adult should deliberately opt for a flat. And so, after spending our first two and a half years in Norwich living in a flat, the opportunity of a house came up, H. liked it immediately, and I thought, well, fair is fair – especially when said house comes with a lovely landlord and bypasses contact with the un-evolved life form that is the average letting agent.

An early 20th century house with dinky stairs probably built by a lover of Jonathan Swift’s Lilliputians. Only half the plantar side of my size 39 foot fits on the steps, while H. has no choice but to put his size 48 feet sideways when commuting between floors. It’s the sidesaddle stair travel style. The one that goes with the walk-in-from-the-street-straight-into-the-front-room feature. Then, there’s another peculiarity. In the room that is now my Scriptorium, the main light fixture is not in the centre of the ceiling, as you would expect it to be (Please tell me I’m not alone in this assumption!) but right by the window, leaving the rest of the room unlit. Most puzzling. “What kind of jackass would have the one and only light in the room right by the window?!” I said, when describing the new house to a friend at the local health shop.

“I can tell you why. I’m an electrician.”

In shock, we turned to the young man standing behind us, who’d overheard our conversation. Now what are the odds…?

“They used to do that in the bedrooms of Victorian and Edwardian houses so that, when you got dressed or undressed, the light was always in front of you, so no one could see your shadow from the street.”

“Seriously? You mean it’s actually deliberate?”

“Yes.”

“But what kind of jackass would get dressed or undressed by the window?”

“Well, just in case, you know… People used to be…”

What? Puritanical? Stupid? I was having a surreal experience.

The house has other eccentricities that led me to rant that the British are the best actors in the world, wonderful writers, that they have given us the Magna Carta and Harry Potter – but keep them away from building bricks. “But what about all these wonderful Medieval cathedrals you love so much?” H. said, in a gentle attempt to guide me back to some kind of balanced thinking.

“They were built by Normans!” I snapped.

A few days later, when our dream queen-size bed was delivered but had to be returned to the shop because the pocket-sprung mattress would not turn the corner on the dinky Munchkin stairs, I declared war on the house, my anger growing into a wise and constructive I’d-rather-be-right-than-happy attitude, otherwise known as slicing off your snout to spite your mug. I remembered a lovely Norfolk-based writer telling me that you need to feel settled in order to write. Well, I didn’t feel settled in this house, I never would feel settled in this house, so I would never write again. And never translate again. Or cook. Or do anything.

So there.

* * *

When we first saw this house, and H. saw the only item of furniture it came with, a long, sturdy pine dining table, he announced that this was where he would be working. Unlike in our previous two homes, I could have the second bedroom for myself. “You can have a proper Scriptorium,” he said.

“But don’t you want to have your study?” I asked.

He insisted that he wanted to work on that huge, sturdy table. I suspect he was being generous.

After two weeks of solid sulking, I got bored.

A Scriptorium with the light by the window. I put my large red anglepoise lamp on the opposite side of the room. Ha! Another small anglepoise on my desk. Nice. A large crystal, long-stemmed wine glass filled with white fairy lights, and a jar with coloured ones. Now we were getting somewhere. My beloved National Gallery print of Verrocchio’s Tobias and the Angel would look good on the back wall. Among the rolled up posters, I discovered Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea, which I’d never put up because H. doesn’t like it. I unrolled it carefully.

It dawned on me that perhaps houses were like people. If you were rude to them, they would be uncooperative. Hmm. I was right to be angry with the house. But being right can become lonesome after a while. The pine doors are actually quite attractive, and I like looking at the swirls and knots in the timber. The sun floods into one side of the house in the morning, and into the other in the afternoon. The bedroom window looks out, in the distance, on the tower of one of Norwich’s Mediaeval churches, and when the sun goes down, it sets the brass weather vane ablaze. The long pine dining table allows room for more guests. And we have a black and white neighbour with staring eyes who rushes to me and rubs her muzzle against my hand whenever she sees me, and purrs.

After a few weeks of polite diplomatic negotiations, the house and I drew up a treaty of mutual support and cooperation. We have an understanding that is slowly developing into trust. The house doesn’t hold my preference for flats against me. I am learning to laugh at its quirks. The Munchkin stairs are still a cause for minor tensions but – what can I say? – no home is perfect. But it’s home now.

Scribe Doll

Share this:

Like this:

Last year, I was at the Easter Sunday service at Norwich Cathedral with a new acquaintance. In the distance, I noticed a lady in the congregation whose face was very familiar. “I think I went to College with her,” I told my acquaintance.

She didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, that’s V. – you know, she had cancer last year.”

And I knew that very second that I would never be friends with my acquaintance. Why? Because I do not want to be friends with someone who can find nothing to say about a stranger except that she’d had cancer. She could have said that V. was a splendid cook, an outstanding gardener, an avid reader, or even simply that she was a lovely person. At a push, “Oh, that’s V. – you know, she had cancer last year and recovered by using such-or-such treatment/philosophy/herbs/breakthrough surgery etc.” Instead, she chose to describe a person exclusively by her affliction rather than by any personality characteristic she might have. As though this woman was defined by her illness and nothing else.

It has been my experience that most people find it much easier – almost unhealthily more comfortable – to relate to another person’s unhappiness than happiness. As a literary translator, I know that it is much easier to convey grief, fear and unhappiness from another language and culture than happiness and humour. Unhappiness travels at the speed of light. Happiness, for some reason, doesn’t. It’s stopped at every corner, questioned, analysed, its visa checked, its motivation examined and viewed with suspicion. Too much happiness is viewed as superficial, twee, unrealistic, whereas unhappiness is frequently described with such complimentary terms as “profound”, “real” and the arts programmes’ favourite, “dark”. Happy endings are automatically considered flawed, while tragic or unresolved ones are worthy of respect. Love stories that turn out happily are chick-lit, but the ones with characters battling each other’s demons are more likely to win literary prizes. When and why did we decide that darkness is worthier than the light?

A few days ago, some neighbours were expressing their sympathy at my husband and me having to move house for the fourth time in as many years, and asked about our plans for the future. “It’s very simple,” I said, flippantly. “I’m going to buy a lottery ticket, win the jackpot, then buy a house in Norwich and an attic apartment in Rome.”

Interestingly, they didn’t comment on the obvious flaw in the premise of my plan. Instead, their faces turned sad and they replied, “Ah, yes, but then when you buy a place you can end up with the neighbours from hell. And then something always goes wrong and repairs are so expensive…” There it was – the zooming in on a tiny crack in an otherwise perfect crystal vase.

“Not too bad…” increasingly seems like the favourite British response to the question “How are you?” and people are surprised when my reaction is, “Oh, dear, have you been unwell?” To me, “Not too bad” implies that things could be worse but, well, they’re not good at the moment.

“A friend in need is a friend indeed” is a saying common to many different cultures, and yet it’s much harder to share good news with a friend than bad ones. People rally around you at bad news, offer help and sympathy with an enthusiasm that (I hate to say this) sometimes verges on a hint of gratitude. They plunge into the pool of your unhappiness and swim in it for hours. Give them a tale of success, independence and joy, and, sadly, they’ll all too often walk around your pool of limpid water looking awkward, almost afraid of dipping their toes in it.

In a café, I overhear a woman at the next table talking to her sister about her forthcoming fiftieth birthday. “It’s a brilliant age,” I volunteer light-heartedly, being two years her senior. “It’s when you find out what you really want.”

“Ah, that’s what she says now,” her sister says. “Just wait for her to be really fifty and then she’ll feel old like the rest of us.”

That’s what I call toxic.

More and more, I find myself drifting away even from people I love if their default setting is one of pessimism or their focus automatically on the negative. If I can’t tell them about my joy, then I will not give them the satisfaction of wallowing in my unhappiness. They have their own. I have no inclination to encourage Schadenfreude.

Why do so many of us accept only a vision of a flawed, doomed world? Is there a crack in our mental viewfinder that distorts our perception?

What makes us more attuned to misery than to joy? To pessimism rather than optimism? To despair rather than hope? Why is it often easier to sink under the gravitational force of darkness rather than dare to push upwards through the clouds and stand in the sunlight?

In a world that is a resounding “YES” why do we primarily hear a stream of little “no”s?

Scribe Doll

Share this:

Like this:

International Women’s Day makes me feel uneasy. The fact that there should still be a need for it. For all the leaps and bounds we’ve have made in Europe and other countries since the relatively recent times when women couldn’t vote or own property, there are still many issues to address before true equality is achieved between the sexes. And one thing I feel very strongly about is that more could be done by women themselves to redress this imbalance.

Every International Women’s Day, I mentally give thanks for having a vote and for all the countless other rights I enjoy which were denied to my female ancestors and, still now, to millions of other women all over globe. But I also feel deeply sad when I think of how many women – perhaps inadvertently – still fuel this gender inequality with their own attitudes and the signals they send out to men and, especially, to other women. Perhaps our first step should be true independence and self-sufficiency.

Naturally, I am speaking here about women who have a choice.

A few weeks ago, I was at a lunch, surrounded by half a dozen or so women I admire greatly for their education, their professional achievements and their indisputable intelligence. Every woman at that table could be a role model for any little girl. This is why I was somewhat shocked to discover that I was the only woman there who had not changed her surname after getting married. The others had kept their own names in the professional field but, in their personal lives, had legally taken on their husbands’ surnames. Time and again, I am surprised by the overwhelming number of women – and young women at that – who take their husbands’ surnames after marriage. Some will argue that most of us carry our fathers’ and not our mothers’ surnames, anyway, but there’s a huge difference between being given a name as a baby, when we have no choice in the matter, and consciously, actively choosing to take on a man’s surname in countries where this is no longer a legal requirement. Doesn’t that send a message akin to saying, “because we love each other I will let you own, change, part of my identity”? I hate to say this, but to me, this is setting the tone for inequality from the outset. Please explain this to me if I am missing something here.

How can you attain equality without self-sufficiency? A landlady I used to lodge with when I was a student once prevented me from doing an easy repair on the cat flap. She said her boyfriend would do it when he dropped by later. When I tried to insist, she said, “Never learn to do DIY, or you’ll always have to do it.”

Brought up in an all-female household where we fixed our own taps, I was shocked. Actively refusing to learn a skill you didn’t enjoy simply on the grounds that you might have to use it at some point in your life struck me as willfully curtailing, in however small a way, your self-sufficiency.

My landlady was not an isolated case. Too many women delegate financial matters to their husbands because they’re “hopeless at maths” (I confess I was guilty of that in my first marriage). Too many women lack the most basic DIY skills because “it’s a man’s job”. Women who – and that’s something I cannot understand – don’t have a bank account of their own. Fair or not, having at least a little of your own money is the first step to self-preservation, never mind independence. Many people choose to cohabit without getting married because it’s important for them to feel that they’re in the relationship out of choice and not because they’re bound to it by a legal document. Trust me, the legal document can be dealt with much more easily than the crippling, paralysing fear, deep at the back of your mind, that you couldn’t leave even if you wanted to because you couldn’t afford a roof over your head or keep yourself in the style of life you have been accustomed to.

I believe that loving and respecting your partner or husband is also expressed by not being totally dependent on him, because every ounce of dependence you place on someone else is the amount by which you prevent him or her from being fully him or herself. Of course, we all depend on our partners in many ways, emotionally, if nothing else. However, being financially dependent not only gives your partner power over you and limits your freedom, but places you in a potentially very vulnerable position.

Every Friday night, walking past the pubs in the city centre, you see young women in sheer, short or very low-cut dresses despite the cold weather. The men, on the other hand, are dressed for the season. Apart from feeling astonished that they don’t feel the cold, I can’t help but wonder: Why not just bring a jacket or a wrap in case they feel cold later or in case it rains? Are they so sure of their health? Are they consciously or unconsciously relying on a man gallantly giving them his jacket? I see these young women balance on such high heels, it is anatomically impossible to – should, God forbid, the need arise – run or even walk fast on them. As an older woman watching them, they appear to me like the picture of vulnerability and, consequently, potential dependence.

A bugbear of mine is women demanding to be paid maintenance after a divorce if they don’t have young children to support. Women who feel that, having given “the best years” of their lives bringing up a family and then finding it hard to get jobs in middle age (and, yes, this is a social reality, unfortunately), they are entitled to be supported after a marriage has ended. As a divorce lawyer I once met put it: a marriage is a relationship, not a pension plan. Having no children myself, I cannot begin even to imagine how hard or even almost impossible it is to keep earning while raising a family well. But I also know women who, as soon as their children started school, began attending courses, keeping abreast of developments in their professional field, and taken on part-time work. Admittedly, many cannot go back to their original, pre-family careers, so they learn new skills. I am not, not, not suggesting this is easy. Only that it is worth doing whatever it takes to keep as much of one’s independence as possible. How can someone who consciously allows herself to be dependent be viewed as an equal?

I frequently come across women doing work they enjoy, often artistic jobs, which don’t pay enough to support even just them alone. They have the luxury of being able to do this because their husbands have “proper” jobs. Apart from the blatant unfairness of the situation, what if these husbands suddenly lose their “proper jobs” or decide they want a divorce? Are these women equipped to survive financially? I know only too well how soul-destroying an unfulfilling job can be, but, surely, we have a responsibility to have at least the potential to keep the wolf away from the door, don’t we?

I love it when my husband or a male friend automatically pays for me in a restaurant or coffee shop. It’s so chivalrous. But, sisters, we just can’t have it both ways. In general, I am often surprised by the number of self-proclaimed feminists who turn all 19th century fair sex as soon as it comes to putting their hands in their pockets.

I feel very strongly that one of the ways towards gender equality is also solidarity among ourselves. Wherever possible, it’s important that women stick together, encourage one another, are sympathetic towards one another, and not undermine members of our own sex.

Let’s stop watching one another in the mirrors of ladies’ rooms, trying to assess who is better dressed, better made-up, more attractive, more of a competition out there where the men are waiting. Let’s stop putting one another down. It is deeply sad but undeniably true that too many women see other women as competitors rather than allies. Too many catty remarks are made where praise and appreciation would be much more constructive. At the beginning of last winter, wearing a new russet-coloured coat and a Tudor-style, brown velvet hat on a slant, I went to see a female friend. The two men I was with had commented on how lovely I looked, so I rang my friend’s bell, a smile on my face. She opened the door, took a quick look at me from top to toe, and said, “Gosh! Russian winter, is it?” My smile disintegrated.

A couple of years ago, a friend invited me over for tea on the occasion of her birthday. H. had a prior commitment, so I went alone. To be fair, my friend didn’t bat an eyelid, but the other woman in her living room, complete with husband, said, “What? Without H.?” Her arch tone and raised eyebrow suggested a hint of disapproval rather than genuine surprise. But perhaps my making it an odd number of guests made the room look untidy.

Many a man is invited over for supper, by the wife of a couple, while his wife is away, “so he doesn’t eat alone, poor thing”. How many wives are invited over for dinner while their husbands are away?

When a woman is single, it’s true to say that – at least in this country – attached women will socialise with her when their husbands are otherwise engaged and seldom invite her to couples’ outings. Are they afraid that she cannot hold her own in a conversation without a man present?

Several years ago, a friend invited me to her engagement party. “Please bring someone,” she said.

I was single at the time, so told her I’d be coming alone.

“But you’ll have no one to talk to!” she replied.

I hadn’t realised that it was a “bring your own conversation partner” event, or that she viewed me as a ventriloquist’s doll. Needless to say, I declined her invitation.

My new female friend L. tells me this strong territorial instinct is a naturally-programmed leftover from our primitive female ancestors, who had to fight tooth and nail to keep other women from their males in order to ensure their very survival and that of their offspring. I like to think that we have evolved since then. We’ve had the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Sturm und Drang, and the Suffragettes. It’s time to shake off the primitive leftovers, right?

Time to take full responsibility for ourselves, and treat our fellow women with compassion and encouragement – always. The fact that many men still consider us as second-class citizens is not a reason to lose our self-respect and our dignity, but, on the contrary a reason to consolidate it. This isn’t about their attitudes, but ours.

Like this:

The phone rings. It’s the letting agents. “This is a courtesy call to let you know that the landlord wants to sell your flat and this is your two months’ notice.”

The words hang over your head, making the air oppressive . “Courtesy call.” It’s what you associate with a computer helpline ringing to check you’re happy with the service provided, or with a hairdresser confirming that you will be attending your hair appointment. A “courtesy call” to inform you that you’re being turfed out of your home. Yes, your home – no matter what landlords and letting agents bully you into believing. For as long as you’re paying rent for it, it is your home. The home that the agent comes to check every six months to make sure you haven’t trashed it. The home for which you have to pay rent six months in advance because you’re self-employed. Where you have to ask permission before hammering extra picture hooks into the walls.

Once you’ve stopped reeling from the news, a list of questions pertaining to the required move starts multiplying in your head. You call the letting agents. “We’d like to pop in and see you –”

“What is it concerning?”

“Well, we have a few questions –”

“Can you ask them over the phone?”

You raise your voice, “Look, is it all right to come and see you or are we not allowed to?”

At the letting agents’ office, the individual who deals with you enunciates their syllables as though they think you can’t keep up. Their politeness has so much added artificial sweetener, it positively makes you want to retch.

You’re told that, even if you’ve been asked to move out, you still have to abide by the contractual obligation of giving a month’s notice if you find another place earlier. That you still have to have the flat professionally cleaned, even though it’s going to be sold and not rented. They don’t sound particularly interested when you tell them you’d like to stay on the agency’s books. You wonder why, and then it occurs to you that letting agents may consider it too much effort to notify renters if a suitable property becomes available – it’s up to the renters to hunt through the internet, find properties, and hassle the agents.

Moreover, you discover that your deposit will be returned “within 28 days” of your moving out. This not only means that you have two months to raise a substantial sum of money, but that you won’t be there when the agents examine your flat, and can’t protest if they decide to deduct any “damage” costs from your deposit.

Renters in the UK are second-class citizens. You’ve known this for a while, so why are you so shocked, so upset? Haven’t you heard, on numerous occasions, your neighbours (who own their properties) make comments about rubbish being left around or other nuisance being caused, undoubtedly, by “the renters in No. this or that”? The law is on the side of the landlord, not the tenant. The landlord has rights. The tenant has obligations. It’s back to the Middle Ages.

You walk into the other letting agencies. They rush to you before you’ve had the time to close the door behind you. “Hello, can I help you?”

“Hello, yes, could I speak to someone about rentals? –”

“What’s your budget?”

No come in, no take a seat.

You wish you could find your next home without going through letting agents. From what you’ve experienced, they actually appear physically incapable of any warmth, feelings, or respect. From the robotic way they act towards you, they seem impervious to any sense of shame. Remember that word? Shame. You haven’t heard it used for a while. Shame. It seems to have gone missing. Disappeared. Like honour.

You look around the flat you’ve cared for and made your home, your sanctuary, for the last two and a half years. Only two and a half years. You had so hoped you could have been allowed to stay longer. You see all the books that need packing. All the CDs, clothes, crockery, and all the odds and ends that can’t be categorised but which make it your home. You notice that the bathroom sink needs to be cleaned. You reach out for the scourer then stop. What’s the point? You’re moving out soon. You go out for a walk to clear your head. It starts to rain. Let’s go back home, where it’s warm. But, suddenly, it’s not home anymore. It’s an assembly of walls, floor and ceiling where you no longer feel welcome. Where you no longer feel safe.

Time to pack. You tell yourself your next home will be even better. Yes, much better. But how long will you be allowed to stay there?

Share this:

Like this:

I don’t understand politics. Much to my shame, I am not as well-informed as a responsible citizen should be.

So I’m going to fumble a little here… I just need to express this. I need to get it off my chest.

I know I’m not the only one who, just over a week ago, watched President Trump’s inauguration with a feeling of sadness, disappointment and, above all, utter disbelief. The same utter disbelief and shock I experienced when I woke up on 24th June to the news that, apparently, it was the will of the British people to leave the European Union. The will of the people. Five words that British politicians – both in Government and in the Opposition – have been whipping us with and rubbing our noses in for the past few weeks. Interesting that nobody in the Government seemed to have paid much attention to the will of the people when thousands of us marched to protest about the war in Iraq. I wonder if, years from now, the expression the will of the people will become a synonym of delegating responsibility, passing the buck, and using the response of a misinformed person or people to further your own interests.

For years, I’ve had friends of all (as long as non-extreme) political convictions and not allowed our differences to get in the way of our friendship. Now, for the first time in my life, I find that I cannot be friends with someone who voted in favour of Brexit. Just like I cannot be friends with any US national who voted for Donald Trump. It’s just too important. I cannot sit at the same table with anyone who has contributed to depriving the younger British generations of the chances we have enjoyed being a part of Europe. And I cannot break bread or have a drink with anyone who had a hand in electing as Leader of the Free World an individual such as Mr Trump. As it happens, last June, H. and I met a couple of US lawyers in an Italian restaurant in London. They said they would vote for Donald Trump. They ordered wine for all of us. We accepted. At the time, although Mr Trump was already giving apparent signs misogyny, intolerance to some other cultures, lack of concern in the environment, and expressing generally extreme opinions, many of us still believed that he was somewhat “playing to the gallery”. Over the past couple of months, I’ve often wondered if this American couple did go through with their intention, and vote for him, or if, after hearing one shocking statement too many on his part, they changed their minds at the last minute. Now, I’m afraid I would not accept a drink from someone I knew had voted for him. Or voted for Brexit.

Most of us, at one time or other, have regretted our voting choice after the event. Politicians don’t honour their electoral promises, or else we discover a vital piece of information that escaped us before election day. We slap ourselves hard on our heads and realise how stupid we’ve been.

But not in the case of Brexit/Trump.

In the case of Brexit, all voters had to do was look around at all the political figures who actively supported a break-away from Europe. Nigel Farage. Marine Le Pen. Vladimir Putin. Need I continue? All voters had to ask themselves was whether or not they wished to keep company with the above. It was a no-brainer, as far as I was concerned.

Equally, with Donald Trump, people knew what to expect. An individual who does a ridiculing imitation of physical disability, whose words on women suggest a misogyny totally out of order in this day and age, who appears to care nothing about the environment. An individual who wants to build a wall between the US and Mexico, for crying out loud! Had no one heard of the Berlin Wall?

One could well ask how any of us non-US citizens dare protest against the election of another country’s leader. Fair point. Except that this isn’t just any other country. It happens to be, at this point in time, a country with major influence on the Western World. So, yes, we are entitled to shout our discontent and our disgust.

One thing in particular that strikes me about Mr Trump is his unbridled rudeness. The parallel with our own Nigel Farage is blatant. They don’t seem to possess a sense of boundaries. By this I mean they don’t appear to have any sense of that mark which any decent person should never overstep. They don’t have that sense of honour which demands that you treat even your enemy with respect and courtesy. Increasingly, the lines from George Orwell’s Animal Farm ring in my head: “Two legs good. Four legs better.”

I wonder about Donald Trump, in particular. Watching him on the news, signing order after order with a flourish, clearly enjoying the process, I wonder what has led him to be so unaware of common courtesy and boundaries. He makes me think of a spoilt child suddenly placed upon a throne and who sends people to be hanged, beheaded and tortured just because he can. Does it come with the territory of being a millionaire with the power of hiring and firing at will that you spend years surrounded only by “yes”-people, are allowed to get away with just about anything, and lose your perspective on right and wrong? Did his wealth and power ensure that he was never in contact with people who would establish their own boundaries firmly enough to stop his own from sprawling?

“Two legs good. Four legs better.” I can’t get these words out of my head.

When, about fifteen years ago, I watched Tony Blair say that he would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with George W. Bush, I shuddered. Two days ago, when I saw Donald Trump take Theresa May’s hand to help her down the steps or slope at the White House, I winced.

We are heading into dark times. Times of tar-like ignorance. Times when I feel it’s important to take a stand. The time for wishy-washy evasiveness is over. There is a right and a wrong. They are not a matter of opinion.